City officials are second-guessing a past decision to limit protests of conditional-use permits.
Conditional- or special-use permits in Dell Rapids are issued to property owners by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Any appeals — by the applicant or the general public — are heard by the city council where a final decision is made.
“The people, the neighbors, have no say. Zero,” alderman Mark Crisp said at a meeting in February. “We make the decision. And if we decide, it’s a done deal. There’s nothing they can do about it.”
He said neighboring property owners should have more sway when a conditional-use permit is appealed, like they did before the city zoning ordinances were updated in 2011.
Dell Rapids City Administrator Justin Weiland said the zoning codes were revised for efficiency purposes.
“We wanted to streamline it,” he said last week. “We didn’t want to drag out conditional-uses. Just to streamline the process, the planning commission makes the decision. Applicants or anyone else has the ability to appeal the decision to the city council.”
The council is expected to decide at its next meeting whether to revert back to the old policy and adopt an ordinance to establish a second level of appeal for conditional-use permits. Under proposed ordinance 794, if 40 percent of property owners within 250 feet of the lot up for a conditional-use permit oppose a council or planning and zoning commission decision, the permit is to be denied. The council ultimately could override the neighborhood protest with a two-thirds majority vote.